The Interior and its People. 241 



busy excitement of civilization. Hence there may fairly be drawn 

 something like a sample of the real African native character and 

 condition. They live in families ; among them the family tie 

 and the rights of property are regarded ; conscience pronounces 

 criminal and offensive the same irregularities as are so regarded 

 among civilized peoples ; in stature and physical condition 

 they come up to the best standards. I argue that the life and 

 condition which presents this state of things after isolation for 

 thousands of years from all we call civilized can scarcely be 

 called evil or degraded. 



Among these people, both pastoral and agricultural, are to be 

 found in progress the germs at least of all the useful arts — the 

 procuring and working of both iron and copper, pottery-making, 

 the spinning and weaving of cotton cloth, the very beautiful de- 

 velopment of plaiting of all kinds of vegetal fibers into string, 

 rope, mats, baskets and cloth ; and where valuable materials 

 and products are naturally confined to particular localities, as is 

 the case sometimes with oil, salt, etc., it is manufactured and 

 distributed. Too often are people described as lacking in in- 

 dustry Avho are not the same as ourselves ; but it seems to me 

 ridiculous that a man should be called lazy because he has 

 ample leisure between his bus}^ times, who has made with his - 

 own hands, from nature's absolutely raw material, his house, his 

 axe and hoe and spear, his clothing and ornaments, his furni- 

 ture, his corn mill, all things that he has, and who, though 

 liable often in a lifetime to have to repeat that whole jjrocess 

 over again, has the energy and enterprise to commence afresh. 

 Too often have the same people been called savage and blood- 

 thirsty who, through all experience and by all their traditions 

 getting naturally to regard unintroduced armed strangers as 

 enemies, have the same desperate energy to defend themselves 

 and their own which, as displayed by our own ancestral rela- 

 tives, we love to term patriotism and courage. 



In a fairly central position on this great central elevation is the 

 elongated basin surrounded by a mountain_ rim in the bottom 

 of which, in a long chasm, lies Lake Tanganyika, in a position 

 alike so central and so unique that I have termed it the Heart 

 of Africa. Inside the mountain basin rim, the rainfall all con- 

 verges into Tanganyika ; outside, it all flows to the outer shores 

 of the continent by the Nile, the Congo or the Zambesi. Fifteen 

 years ago the Avaters of Lake Tanganyika, having very slowly 



